Cryptocurrencies

[Jurgis]

21 minutes ago, Jurgis said:

US airlines should accept Doge coins for tickets. Their stonks would go , they could buy more Doge coins and use them to buy more of their stonks. This would be Space X on steroids.

I am too late:

 

[thowed]

10 hours ago, Jurgis said:

I am too late:

 

 

I mean, you really can't make this stuff up anymore...

 

 

[SharperDingaan]

Great start to the day!

Now to just turn that Elon Musk video into a limited edition NFT .... coming to you by end-of-week!!

SD

[TwoCitiesCapital]

Elon is a troll and is pumping Doge just like he pumped TSLA stock with his 'taking private' tweet. This is all meme-worthy behavior, but I do not necessarily judge the crypto space by my feelings towards Doge. 

That being said, things are getting hot and are overvalued relative to fundamentals for most coins - but history has it that they tend to get RIDICULOUSLY overvalued and then bust so I imagine much higher upside remains.

Also, network growth is still at such high rates that for any of the 'successful' coins that still have a use case in 3-years, buying at the top probably won't prove problematic. Just like buying Bitcoin and Ether at the top in 2017 didn't prove problematic in hindsight. 

TL;DR - prices for bluechip coins today are probably just fine with a 2+ time horizon even if you aren't speculating that the bubble blows bigger. 

Edited May 10, 2021 by TwoCitiesCapital

[fareastwarriors]

3 hours ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

.

Also, network growth is still at such high rates that for any of the 'successful' coins that still have a use case in 3-years, buying at the top probably won't prove problematic. Just like buying Bitcoin and Ether at the top in 2017 didn't prove problematic in hindsight. 

TL;DR - prices for bluechip coins today are probably just fine with a 2+ time horizon even if you aren't speculating that the bubble blows bigger. 

 

Which are the blue chip coins?

[rkbabang]

39 minutes ago, fareastwarriors said:

cch are the blue chip coins?

BTC and ETH for sure.  Maybe ADA or some others.  But if you are just starting, buy BTC and ETH.

[Castanza]

5 hours ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

Elon is a troll and is pumping Doge just like he pumped TSLA stock with his 'taking private' tweet. This is all meme-worthy behavior, but I do not necessarily judge the crypto space by my feelings towards Doge. 

That being said, things are getting hot and are overvalued relative to fundamentals for most coins - but history has it that they tend to get RIDICULOUSLY overvalued and then bust so I imagine much higher upside remains.

Also, network growth is still at such high rates that for any of the 'successful' coins that still have a use case in 3-years, buying at the top probably won't prove problematic. Just like buying Bitcoin and Ether at the top in 2017 didn't prove problematic in hindsight. 

TL;DR - prices for bluechip coins today are probably just fine with a 2+ time horizon even if you aren't speculating that the bubble blows bigger. 

Fundamentals? 

[TwoCitiesCapital]

41 minutes ago, Castanza said:

Fundamentals? 

Network utilization, new wallet growth, developer support, etc. 

And the DeFi space is becoming more like traditional finance. What is the value of the Synthetix token? The ability to collect exchange fees. What are those fees? 0.3% of transaction notional. How much will transactions grow? What will fees be? How many coins will be outstanding? What's your return at today's price? A lot of tokens are more akin to traditional finance than you might think. 

2 hours ago, fareastwarriors said:

 

Which are the blue chip coins?

Basically just look at the top 20 minus the clearly ridiculous shit that might occasionally pop onto it like Doge. 

[Fly]

Doge is a reflection of retail joining the frenzy. I'd say we're in the 6th inning of the game. Same with stuff like Shib and the other animal/food meme coins. There is certainly money to be made on these, but they are fickle and a pure hype trade with little unique underlying technical aspects. Some have fun tokenomics like burning coin supply for each transaction and things of that sort, but they do not have large networks of miners/nodes/developers to challenge the security and "hardness" of BTC. 

Edited May 11, 2021 by Fly

[Simba]

On 5/10/2021 at 6:49 AM, thowed said:

 

I mean, you really can't make this stuff up anymore...

 

 

"Do you want Tesla to accept Doge?" - Elon Musk (May 11 2021)

 

[Spekulatius]

4 minutes ago, Simba said:

"Do you want Tesla to accept Doge?" - Elon Musk (May 11 2021)

 

Doge is a hustle and Elon is a hustler.

[Simba]

And the Dogefather has spoken... .

Tesla suspended vehicle purchases with Bitcoin. Concerned about the environmental factors of BTC.

Looking at other cryptocurrencies that uses 1% of the energy BTC does.

 

 

[Krapdivad]

Interesting that Stanley Druckenmiller also commented yesterday that crypto might provide a replacement to the dollar as the world's reserve currency, but suggesting an alternative that had yet to be created.

Interesting because he owns bitcoin, but doesn't have a strong faith that it'll be THE crypto. 

He said in the CNBC interview that the ultimate solution could be “some kind of ledger system invented by some kids from MIT or Stanford” though he conceded that “I don’t know what it will be.”

[SharperDingaan]

12 hours ago, Krapdivad said:

Interesting that Stanley Druckenmiller also commented yesterday that crypto might provide a replacement to the dollar as the world's reserve currency, but suggesting an alternative that had yet to be created.

Interesting because he owns bitcoin, but doesn't have a strong faith that it'll be THE crypto. 

He said in the CNBC interview that the ultimate solution could be “some kind of ledger system invented by some kids from MIT or Stanford” though he conceded that “I don’t know what it will be.”

Might even say that he is familiar with this board! 

Apr-13: "CBDC is country level digital currency, that most all counties will eventually go to. Reserve Bank Digital Currency (RBDC) is trade level digital currency, and most likely a decade long work-in-process. Eventually it will become the globes reserve currency, but after a number of iterations along the way."

SD

Edited May 13, 2021 by SharperDingaan

[TwoCitiesCapital]

While appreciating the potential of disruption, I also appreciate a network. 

Facebooks has been an inferior social network IMO, but retains top dog status because of it's network. Same could be said for the eventual adoption of QWERTY keyboards and VHS va Betamax and etc. 

Often times its not the best one that wins - just the one that has the largest network of users committed to it. 

I think despite their problems, people are overlooking that no other crypto currency network looks anything close to Bitcoin or Ethereum. 

[patience_and_focus]

I think people are underestimating the risk posed by non-traceability of crypto. Its not just financial mania and stability. The ability of sovereign (countries) to respond to things like ransomware and other cyber crimes for money transfers is compromised. It will become untenable when it will start to be seen from the lens of national security (not just from regulation standpoint). At that point hammer will come down hard on crypto -

https://fortune.com/2021/05/13/colonial-pipeline-paid-hackers-5-million-ransom-cryptocurrency-ransomware-attack/

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-12/crypto-s-anonymity-has-regulators-circling-after-colonial-ransomware-hack

 

 

[rkbabang]

51 minutes ago, patience_and_focus said:

I think people are underestimating the risk posed by non-traceability of crypto. Its not just financial mania and stability. The ability of sovereign (countries) to respond to things like ransomware and other cyber crimes for money transfers is compromised. It will become untenable when it will start to be seen from the lens of national security (not just from regulation standpoint). At that point hammer will come down hard on crypto -

https://fortune.com/2021/05/13/colonial-pipeline-paid-hackers-5-million-ransom-cryptocurrency-ransomware-attack/

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-12/crypto-s-anonymity-has-regulators-circling-after-colonial-ransomware-hack

 

 

If I were more conspiratorially minded I might think that this whole thing was orchestrated along with gas shortages to give them an excuse to start cracking down now while the public opinion can still be steered toward a dislike of something they don't yet understand, before it's too late.

Edited May 13, 2021 by rkbabang

[TwoCitiesCapital]

53 minutes ago, patience_and_focus said:

I think people are underestimating the risk posed by non-traceability of crypto. Its not just financial mania and stability. The ability of sovereign (countries) to respond to things like ransomware and other cyber crimes for money transfers is compromised. It will become untenable when it will start to be seen from the lens of national security (not just from regulation standpoint). At that point hammer will come down hard on crypto -

https://fortune.com/2021/05/13/colonial-pipeline-paid-hackers-5-million-ransom-cryptocurrency-ransomware-attack/

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-12/crypto-s-anonymity-has-regulators-circling-after-colonial-ransomware-hack

 

 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - if you want to remain anonymous with your transactions, having a public ledger of every single one of them is a very poor way to do it.

Each payment sent/received is then a node for potential security failure with the entity receiving money from you, or sending money to you, and security risk in identifying you  when the authorities come knocking. 

All it takes is a single break and all of your transactions ever made from that wallet become  identifiable and linked to you. This far less useful than using physical cash for anonymity purposes and I'm growing really tired of hearing people make it out as argument against crypto. 

If regulators can work through vast webs of corporate shell entities and electronic accounts to identify individuals committing tax fraud and terrorist funding - they can do the exact same thing with crypto. I'd even hazard a guess it's easier. 

Edited May 13, 2021 by TwoCitiesCapital

[patience_and_focus]

ok - let me rephrase. If there was a simplified 2x2 matrix with rows as "ease of use" and columns as "non-traceability and anonymity" for large money transfers / laundering here is what is it will look -

 

1. Cash: 
   • ease of use - low (particularly with large sums and trans national transfers)
   • non-traceability and anonymity - mid to high (you could in theory trace using serial numbers)
2. Traditional bank / wire transfer
   • ease of use - mid to high
   • non-traceability and anonymity - low to non-existent
3. Crypto
   • ease of use - mid to high (depends on acceptance by various organizations and is dynamically changing and increasing)
   • non-traceability and anonymity - mid to high (less anonymous than cash in theory but in practice requires equal or more resources to catch bad actors due to ease of use)

There is already govt movement towards cash less society prior to crypto arriving on the scene in a big way. The combination of high ease of use + non-traceability and anonymity will make it prime target of govt regulators/law enforcement. I am not making philosophical point and right or wrong at this time. This is just the way it is.

Edited May 13, 2021 by patience_and_focus

[Simba]

21 hours ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

While appreciating the potential of disruption, I also appreciate a network. 

Facebooks has been an inferior social network IMO, but retains top dog status because of it's network. Same could be said for the eventual adoption of QWERTY keyboards and VHS va Betamax and etc. 

Often times its not the best one that wins - just the one that has the largest network of users committed to it. 

I think despite their problems, people are overlooking that no other crypto currency network looks anything close to Bitcoin or Ethereum. 

Interesting concept. Clearly BTC/ETH have some incredible network effects at the moment. No doubt about that.

IMO one aspect of bitcoins network effect is that it is heavily tied to it sustaining high returns. Higher returns beget new users, which results in higher returns, and it becomes a virtuous cycle upwards, a bit of what we are seeing today. (This is an oversimplification as obviously the technology is evolving, and more innovation / fintech / corporations have accepted crypto since BTC was first introduced) 

I predict that Bitcoin will require more and more user adoption (i.e. institutions) to sustain higher and higher prices. There are only 21M coins so it's a closed loop. 

I know none of us have the answer - but it seems almost too perfect if bitcoin becomes the winning crypto say in 2030.

Elon Musk (as silly as he seems) has poked some legitimate holes in the bitcoin long thesis in recent days.

I personally think were reaching a top in the next 12-24 months, if we have not reached it already.

The crypto / NFT space is so red hot, it would really astonish me if these assets still go up another 200-300% from here. Maybe there is really that much money in the system, but I don't think so. 

Every asset class eventually tops when it is not supported by fundamentals. This goes for gold, real estate, stocks, bonds, etc. I don't see why crypto would not face the same fundamentals as other asset classes.

Right now, so many people think crypto can never fail.

To quote Sir John Templeton, “The four most dangerous words in investing are: this time it's different.”

Edited May 13, 2021 by Simba

[rkbabang]

Of course there is a top, as you said, just like gold. But Bitcoin has a long way to go before it is as widely held as gold by banks and institutions.   The top will eventually be reached, then it will just rise mostly against currencies which are inflationary at the rate of inflation.  I personally think the price in dollars that BTC will reach before it stabilizes is in the $millions.

[Castanza]

Anyone have a take on the "energy consumption" issue with BTC? Potential fixes or perhaps some good resources to share? Seems to be a lot of noise around it after that Elon tweet

[JRM]

31 minutes ago, Castanza said:

Anyone have a take on the "energy consumption" issue with BTC? Potential fixes or perhaps some good resources to share? Seems to be a lot of noise around it after that Elon tweet

A lot of the mining is done in China, and I'm confident that the mining is powered largely by coal.  Here's a source, but don't know how accurate: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-power-consumption-of-bitcoin-mining/

Regardless of what the hodlers are saying about Bitcoin being powered by renewables (which I think is mostly bullshit), its still an extreme waste of energy and resources.  

There's also an argument I've heard that mining bitcoin is somehow a solution to the load mismatch with renewable power generation.  The argument goes something like mine bitcoin during times when the load is low.  This obviously is asinine and makes no sense in reality.  Mining bitcoin does nothing to stabilize a power grid based on renewable sources.

Ark's white paper about Bitcoin mining energy usage has been torn to shreds by anybody with any sense of how energy actually works.

What I don't understand is how did Tesla invest $1.5B in Bitcoin and overlook this obvious 'feature'?  Elon claims Tesla will no longer accept Bitcoin as payment, but will still hodl Bitcoin on the balance sheet.  Does anybody believe what this guy says? At least this has caused a new group to turn on Elon and his peddling of techno-babble BS.

Edited May 14, 2021 by JRM

[JRM]

Another article:

https://qz.com/1982209/how-bitcoin-can-become-more-climate-friendly/?utm_source=reddit.com

[SharperDingaan]

BTC ran up, primarily because it was ‘re-packaged’ into ETFs. Novices could buy the 50K BTC at a nominal cost/unit and get professional financial/IT management along with it. For the HODLer, as most of the market is, it is primarily about obtaining ‘safe’ experience in this new technology.  

As recovery occurs, most would expect BTC to go higher – mostly because BTC is NOT devaluing, whereas fiat is. Hence primarily FX gain, that pulls in additional retail funds, that pulls in additional institutional flow, that drives price still higher. The retail funds coming primarily from ordinary people, in countries experiencing rapid currency devaluation, converting fiat into BTC - as a way of protecting their wealth. 

The energy argument is just negotiation. The bulk of miners are in China, using coal-fired electricity, and it needs to be greener. Speed up both the hydro (3-gorges) and nuclear, upgrade the electric grid, and it is back to BTC. Tesla’s are electric and require a robust electricity grid if they are to sell in quantity within China. A BTC sale and repurchase is also easily executable on the CME. 

Doge is simply a penny token, touted the same way that most penny stocks are. Of course, not all sub $1 stocks warrant the ‘label’;  but for a great many – it is richly deserved.  And the more Doge screws the pooch, the higher BTC goes. 

Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice …..

SD

Edited May 14, 2021 by SharperDingaan